Pre Season Training & Matches

[Zezima]

Nice to see that you are working hard. I just watched the first video
- maybe it is the angle of the camera but the strokes seems pretty small, like you are holding in the stroke?
- I also think you could push more from the ground on the first stroke and when you try to loop hard try use hip even more, push it forward. Like if you are goin to throw something far away
- good to differentiate i think between slow loop with spin or hard loop. Inbetween is not as good as first loop
- get more spin in the stroke. The harder opening loop maybe need to have thicked contact but it seems in general like the ball sometimes go out since you get a thick contact. At least if he push less backspin.
Maybe try this for more spin:
- practice half long pushes to loop at or loop loop. When the ball is under the net you need to create more spin
- let the forearm loose
- closed racket angle, at least on the second loop. Starting with the racket higher and come out more will also make you go over the ball more
- maybe more backhandgrip. Hard to change grip. I would say that a lot of players today have more backhandgrip. A little more backhand grip will give you less thick contact

I think i would practice:
- like you do now but focus on getting forearm loose and get a lot of spin. Then coming out and following up good. Need to be beneficial to get the first loop, so have to be good at second loop
- multiball and try to loop hard by pushing from leg and hip. Maybe worth trying to exaggerate almost not moving arm at all just to get the feeling
- maybe try some more backhand grip. Think this could help backhand and give more spin in forehand without changing anything else

I think it is wise to think about making it functional and working. Technique is not everything. But i think you do a lot of good things aswell!
like:
- low serve
- racket in the middle at the beginning and between strokes
- bending legs pretty well and moves out good
- also seem very serious

Keep up the good work

I can do the slow spin open up already. I was working on going for more speed this time around.

The slow spinny also makes me not being able to focus on followup ball because my practise partners struggle blocking that ball.

I can go harder on these balls but I tend to lose consistency a lot. I overshoot a lot. Still trying to figure out to get a feel to make the ball dip faster while hitting it harder.

I can exaggarate a bit next time and go all out for a minute without caring about the ball landing on the table sure. But I doubt I will ever use it in a real match since I don't habe the training environment to make it work. I try to focus on things that fit my gamestyle (allround offensiv) instead of all out attacker.

I like varying speed spin block and attacks. And prefer medium paced ball exchanges where I get enough time to switch to attack.

Also my attackpower was never the problem in my losses. It's mainly receive and bh opener. But bh opener looks much better with r7 now. I can also punch block with bh now. I couldn't do it with d09c.

 

[Archosaurus]

I don't know why but I perform much better if I serve this kind of backspin (spinwise) Anything more and they just need to hold out the right racket angle and the ball comes low and fast to my side. I don't have the needed reactiontime to get in position to loop then.

Okay, fair. That's the kind of ball I'm talking about. It's ideal to loop, because it's fast enough to get some pace off and has high enough spin to get friction off. You can also quite easily condition them into popping it up if they stop reading it and you change the spin amount or axis slightly.

I'm surprised players over 1500 let you get away with serving like this (Drill and matches) but the game is complicated, so I suppose if it works then it's fair enough.

 

[Lula]

I can do the slow spin open up already. I was working on going for more speed this time around.

The slow spinny also makes me not being able to focus on followup ball because my practise partners struggle blocking that ball.

I can go harder on these balls but I tend to lose consistency a lot. I overshoot a lot. Still trying to figure out to get a feel to make the ball dip faster while hitting it harder.

I can exaggarate a bit next time and go all out for a minute without caring about the ball landing on the table sure. But I doubt I will ever use it in a real match since I don't habe the training environment to make it work. I try to focus on things that fit my gamestyle (allround offensiv) instead of all out attacker.

I like varying speed spin block and attacks. And prefer medium paced ball exchanges where I get enough time to switch to attack.

Also my attackpower was never the problem in my losses. It's mainly receive and bh opener. But bh opener looks much better with r7 now. I can also punch block with bh now. I couldn't do it with d09c.

Okey sounds good, especially trying to practice according to your playing style. Interesting how much equipment can change the game. Maybe a slower 5 ply blade could help the ball dip more.

I never said you should go all out and miss. Just that if you can get more hip in the ball i think you will be able to play harder. And like you said that it differ from soft and hard, but do not really need to be hard and harder.

Doing multiball i think would be a good idea if you have the balls. Then it do not matter as much your playing partners level and probably feels easier to practice looping hard against backspin aswell against block. Also possible to go more from the results and not the technique.

I still think getting forearm more loose, maybe a bit more backhandgrip so racket get more closed or having racket higher or closing the racket angle a bit more will help you get the ball to dip since you get a bit more spin. My personal opinion is that it is always better to miss in the net, never want the power to go up.

 

[Archosaurus]

At the risk of sounding very pretentious, and with a disclaimer that Zezima's playing level is higher than mine so he can choose to care or not care about what I think:

Looking at that opener video, a lot of the time you lift the ball by opening the angle a bit and pushing the elbow upwards and a bit forward. I think that might be one cause for why you overshoot if you add power.

Refer to timestamp for an obvious one:

I don't know how you'd fix that, or if you definitely have to fix that, but to me it looks like your followthrough is symptomatic. You finish with the bat across your chest (Well, it's not too low, so more like across your head. )and pointing to the side. Maybe that's a German thing and that's just how you are supposed to swing with BTY/ESN rubbers, but it's something that catches my eye.

 

[Zezima]

Okay, fair. That's the kind of ball I'm talking about. It's ideal to loop, because it's fast enough to get some pace off and has high enough spin to get friction off. You can also quite easily condition them into popping it up if they stop reading it and you change the spin amount or axis slightly.

I'm surprised players over 1500 let you get away with serving like this (Drill and matches) but the game is complicated, so I suppose if it works then it's fair enough.

Your first paragraph I am not sure if I understand it.

Well 90% I get a push back. Hell even if I serve topspin to their backhand if its shortish they still push it. Very uncomfortable for me so they keep doing it.
Also this is my most "simple" serve its just a plain backspin serve to keep the drill easy enough for him. I also trained free serve 3rd ball attack last 7min to make it more "unpredictable" but his return rate was around 30%.

 

[Zezima]

At the risk of sounding very pretentious, and with a disclaimer that Zezima's playing level is higher than mine so he can choose to care or not care about what I think:

Looking at that opener video, a lot of the time you lift the ball by opening the angle a bit and pushing the elbow upwards and a bit forward. I think that might be one cause for why you overshoot if you add power.

Refer to timestamp for an obvious one:

I don't know how you'd fix that, or if you definitely have to fix that, but to me it looks like your followthrough is symptomatic. You finish with the bat across your chest (Well, it's not too low, so more like across your head. )and pointing to the side. Maybe that's a German thing and that's just how you are supposed to swing with BTY/ESN rubbers, but it's something that catches my eye.

Idk if you mean what I realized I will just describe it and you can say yes or no:
Since I have no coach I "learned" unintentionally to overload my elbows responsibility meaning that my elbow doesn't only act as pivot but also "pushing" into the ball if that makes sense.

From what I understood that should not happen but the elbow moving forwards should only happen because the hips rotate.

I also sometimes feel like I have enough time until the ball has landed on my side and because of my movement I seem to be 0,2sec too late. So my arm is still almost at starting point when it should be more "higher up" at the acceleration phase. And when I hit it too late and the arm is still low I overshoot. Atleast thats how I analyzed it.

Okey sounds good, especially trying to practice according to your playing style. Interesting how much equipment can change the game. Maybe a slower 5 ply blade could help the ball dip more.

I never said you should go all out and miss. Just that if you can get more hip in the ball i think you will be able to play harder. And like you said that it differ from soft and hard, but do not really need to be hard and harder.

Doing multiball i think would be a good idea if you have the balls. Then it do not matter as much your playing partners level and probably feels easier to practice looping hard against backspin aswell against block. Also possible to go more from the results and not the technique.

I still think getting forearm more loose, maybe a bit more backhandgrip so racket get more closed or having racket higher or closing the racket angle a bit more will help you get the ball to dip since you get a bit more spin. My personal opinion is that it is always better to miss in the net, never want the power to go up.

This is already a 5 ply blade but it's still a fast wood blade. From the feeling I can say that I don't need a carbon blade. I compensate with how big I am so I can technically reach high power if I just practise. But again it's not how I win my games. Think of me something like samsonov,mengel type of playstyle and not something like Sora or felix or even someone like aruna.

I tried doing multiball here with them but its catastrophic. They can put only 30% of the balls and the balls are no spin mainly. Much better to tell them to serve a specific ball.

I have more success with a more open racket angle. If you watch my older videos I had a very closed racket angle and I was opening up my racket angle right before contact. So it messed up when I wanted to hit harder. It got slightly better now I think. I don't change my racket angle too much atleast not in the drills.

My forearm is quite lose tbh. Idk what your obsession with backhand grip is though. I def hit better quality balls with a forehand grip. I also feel like sometimes if I am too slow at changing I am forced to loop diagonally because of the grip. I want to stay flexible and hit anywhere on the table. And again Spin is definetly not my weakness for this level.
Even a 1850 (highest I played vs) struggles if I do a slower spinny loop. I just run the risk of looping too short and high arc thats what I try to avoid so they don't slap the ball. High arc but deeper is best though.

My next step currently is to rotate into the ball a tiny bit faster and taking a good half a step jump back after the opener to hit a quality shot vs block (having more time).

I am also experimenting a bit with deeper to the side placement so I don't get surprised when they block parallel (my diagonal opener) which would be harder for them if I place it wide to the side. Basically trying to make their return more predictable for me.